


Tea for Ferdinand

by crescentmoontea



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), The Great Bridge of Myrddin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentmoontea/pseuds/crescentmoontea
Summary: But loyalty to Ferdinand felt nothing like loyalty to Edelgard. Loyalty to Ferdinand was effervescent and impossible to cage, like the steam that rose from their ever-contrasting cups of coffee and tea. It stroked the line of Hubert’s jaw, curled up in his chest and nested in his lungs, warmed his belly on cold nights and calmed his nerves on the most frenetic of days.//The day before Hubert and Ferdinand's A+ support -- during Verdant Wind.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 18
Kudos: 101





	Tea for Ferdinand

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags: canonical character death ahead.

Tomorrow.

Hubert bought the heavy wooden box of tea nearly two weeks ago; it had since become a rather pathetic fixture on the right-hand edge of his desk. The merchant assured him it was the finest blend available, gathered from some very particular grove of pines in the far eastern reaches of the Almyran subcontinent. The needles retained their velvet-soft texture despite months spent drying under the hot sun; such a delicate blend rarely survived the trip across Fodlan’s Throat, he’d bragged. Hubert had to admit its scent was not unpleasant: mild and earthy, subtle and quiet.

It was nothing at all like its intended recipient. 

Hubert sometimes marvelled at how someone as outgoing and spirited as Ferdinand von Aegir became a connoisseur of something as reserved and serene as tea. Surely it had started as a charade, like any other hobby favored by the old guard of Fodlan nobility. But Ferdinand was incapable of performing without putting the very whole of his heart into whatever role he’d been given. He drew from a well of overflowing passion, wore the same determined expression singing in Dorothea’s operettas and swinging his blade. In every way, he was Hubert’s diametric opposite. Hubert had no passion of which to speak, not for war nor peace nor people, but he made up for it with his loyalty -- loyalty that had once been reserved only for Emperor Edelgard, but had somehow captured Ferdinand in its grasp as well.

But loyalty to Ferdinand felt nothing like loyalty to Edelgard. Loyalty to Ferdinand was effervescent and impossible to cage, like the steam that rose from their ever-contrasting cups of coffee and tea. It stroked the line of Hubert’s jaw, curled up in his chest and nested in his lungs, warmed his belly on cold nights and calmed his nerves on the most frenetic of days.

Ferdinand was due back tomorrow, so tomorrow he would give Ferdinand the tea. Hubert would find him, follow him at a distance until he was alone on one of the pathways surrounding the Imperial Palace, and hold out his gift with two hands. “I bought this with you in mind,” he’d say. 

Knowing Ferdinand, he’d sputter and flail about at the gesture. It was shockingly easy to make Ferdinand blush, and Hubert couldn’t deny he’d made a bit of a game out of it, teasing color onto Ferdinand’s cheeks whenever the two spent an afternoon sharing a table. It was positively unbecoming for a general to turn pink at the simplest of jests, and Hubert never missed an opportunity to remind him. 

_“I- I assure you,”_ Ferdinand had stammered the last time they spoke, _“This does not ordinarily happen to me. There is something about you--”_  


At that, Hubert had leaned forward in his chair, hands pressed with eagerness under his chin, and Ferdinand had clapped a hand over his mouth, jolted out of his chair, excused himself with a flimsy lie of a forgotten appointment. 

All in all, it was rather perplexing that Hubert had waited this long to give the gift. It wasn’t like him to waver once he’d made a decision, and yet each time he held the tea in his hands, they trembled, and he always left his study empty-handed. But tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow, he’d present it under the guise of a tribute to their victory at the Great Bridge of Myrddin. 

Three days ago, Ferdinand and Ladislava led their squadrons away from Enbarr at dawn, after a hastily-convened strategy meeting one day prior. Hubert was about to declare his intent to fight when Ferdinand rose from his chair.

 _“We need not risk everyone’s lives this time,”_ Ferdinand said--to the whole of the war council, presumably, though his eyes didn’t stray from Hubert’s--and when Hubert opened his mouth to protest, Ferdinand raised a hand to silence him. _“Allow me to defend our honor. After this battle, I will be known far and wide as the legendary Ferdinand of Adrestia!”_

Hubert had no intention of calling him by that outlandish name, but he couldn’t deny the small swoop of pride he felt when scrawling it into the margins of his ledger. And the battle at the bridge was all but an assured win; the decision to grant Ferdinand command passed with unanimous support. And in the days since, Hubert had once or twice caught himself imagining the people of the Empire whispering to each other between the stalls of the market, telling tales of a fabled hero with long, ginger hair--

As he picked the box of tea up from its perch, rapid knocks rang out against the study’s door. Hubert crossed the room in three paces to open it. A short, slight man stood quaking in the vestibule, eyes hidden beneath the metal brim of his helmet. 

“I have news from Myrddin, Lord von Vestra.”

“Already?” Hubert said, holding back a quiet chuckle. _Leave it to Ferdinand to secure a victory quicker than expected._

The myrmidon said nothing.

Hubert tried again. “Was the enemy raid smaller than anticipated?”

The messenger’s continued silence hung like a lead curtain over the room. 

A creeping dread began to pulse through Hubert’s veins. “Do not make me repeat myself.” 

The messenger bowed his head even lower. “The surviving troops have returned, but the bridge has fallen.”

Wrath clawed up Hubert’s spine. _Impossible._ “Send von Aegir here immediately. We must chart an urgent course to--”

“I’m sorry, Lord von Vestra,” the messenger interrupted, “but General von Aegir has been counted among the dead.”

The words bobbed in the air like balloons, taunted Hubert with their emptiness as they burst. Hubert's heartbeat turned coarse and sharp within his chest. _This wasn’t supposed to happen._ He could have pulled rank and joined the fight, he could have rebuked Ferdinand’s infuriating optimism in the council meeting. How stupid and foolish and reckless he had been, how blind, how gutless and naive, how--

A dull clatter echoed around his feet; the box of tea had fallen from his hands and splintered, spilling brittle green needles across the herringbone floor.

“Was the body recovered?” Hubert forced the question from his throat against its will. 

“Body, sir?”

“von Aegir’s body. Was it--” Hubert stopped, swallowed the treacherous word and replaced it, “was _he_ recovered?”

“I don’t know, sir. There were a lot of casualties--”

The dark tickle of Banshee Θ scuttled across Hubert’s palms; he curled his hands into fists to contain it. “You will report back tomorrow with a different answer. Understood?” 

The miserable failure of a messenger finally looked up, his piteous gaze unbearably soft as it swept against the beading sweat on Hubert’s forehead. 

“Yes, sir,” he said with a salute, a bow, a quick step backwards. 

And then he was gone, leaving Hubert alone with the cacophonous silence of his study. 

Hubert’s eyes lost their focus; the edges of the room blurred and the air thickened, heavy around his ears; the afternoon sun streaming in from the window turned harsh and cool, sapped of its orange and golden tones as it shone upon Hubert’s shaking hands; the sunlight had never felt so _cold_ against his skin-- 

Hubert pitched forward onto the ground as a spiral of vertigo shook his skull. He knelt amongst the shards of the box, grasped two handfuls of the scattered tea and crushed it; the dull green needles turned to pallid dust between his fingers-- 

“Tomorrow,” he murmured, choking on the syllables. Dozens more piled up on his tongue, some familiar and some new; they pressed their ridged and feathered edges against his lips and teeth, begging his mouth to open, but it couldn’t-- 

he couldn’t-- 

not now, not ever, he could never-- 

would never again--

***

Ferdinand’s body was brought home to Enbarr on an unremarkable, overcast morning. He was laid to rest that afternoon; the surviving members of his battalion lowering his casket as Dorothea sang a quiet elegy. Hubert felt vacant as the hollow of a tree, his unspoken tomorrows disappearing beneath shovelfuls of dirt. He had nothing to offer but a hand of comfort upon one of Edelgard’s shoulders. 

“I’m told you’re the reason he was recovered,” she said, arms quivering, face gaunt and stern. 

Hubert shook his head. “I’m afraid whomever you heard that from was mistaken, Your Majesty.” 

Edelgard tried to lock her violet eyes with his, but Hubert stiffened his posture and turned away. A chilly rain began to fall upon the burial ground; Hubert’s chest filled with tight, keening fury as warm and cool droplets mixed together on his cheeks. How dare the clouds empty their wretched wells on a day like this. The loathsome haze was an affront to the way flecks of light once danced in Ferdinand’s campfire eyes, to how his fervent zeal and easy smile once brightened every room he entered. How _dare_ the raindrops muddy the earth the day it entombed him. Ferdinand deserved the sun, he had always deserved the sun--

***

When Hubert next returned to his study, he stretched a sheet of cream-colored parchment taut and thin across his desk. But for three days, the page stayed blank, mocked him from its calm repose over the shining mahogany. Three days he kept his inkwell corked, his quill dry.

“What would you have me write?” Hubert asked a ray of light creeping across his desk. “There was so much we had yet to discuss. The future of this war still lurks in the shadows; how am I to fight it without my sun?”

The beam fell upon his inkwell and Hubert choked on his breath.

“I see,” he said with a bow of his head. “Clever as always.”

And Hubert began to write the letter he should have written months ago, planning for the contingencies he should never have ignored. Ferdinand was not the only mortal among them; each and every leader in the Empire could perish. Including Her Majesty. Including himself. But Hubert’s words, were they able to outlive him, could ensure every last slithering shadow would be flooded with light, even if he wasn’t the one who cast the fatal spells. 

When the ink was dry, and the parchment rolled, and the wax seal dripped and pressed and hardened, Hubert tucked the letter in a drawer of his desk. He stooped low to the ground, scooped up the splinters and the scant handful of needles not yet ground to powder by his boots. He cupped one hand over the other, like how a child might carry a baby bird, and walked to the burial ground. 

When he arrived, the sun was just beginning to graze the horizon. Hubert found himself alone with the rows of stones: the oldest long reclaimed by moss and clover, the freshest boxed with rough, black dirt. He made his way afield to Ferdinand, knelt before him in sorrow and reverence, sunk his knees into the still-soft earth. He closed his eyes, opened his hands, and scattered the tea on the wing of the breeze.


End file.
